The article discusses environmental problems in a rural school and ways to solve them using the formation of the ecological culture of schoolchildren.
Key words: environmental education, ecological culture, rural school.
The problem of the relationship between nature and man in recent decades has become one of the most widely discussed and relevant. The reason for this is a sharp deterioration in the quality of the natural environment: its degradation, and sometimes decay. The current period establishes that environmental knowledge is becoming the cornerstone in the relationship between man and nature.
At the present stage of development of society, one of the main strategic resources of the country is youth — one of the most socially active segments of the population. And the future of our country depends on how the young generation is growing up.
Young people are now increasingly involved in the conservation and improvement of the natural environment. What was repeatedly said in the media. One of such examples is the referendum held recently in Switzerland, where one of the main topics was the discussion of the environmental situation in the world and its impact on the planet's population. This problem caused special excitement after the speech of environmental activist from Sweden, Greta Tunberg. Her active life position, which primarily affects environmental issues, as well as a radical point of view, allowed her to gain celebrity status and implement several serious environmental initiatives. This could not but interest the students, and in connection with this there was a need to strengthen the formation of the ecological culture of schoolchildren. And since our rural school is in direct relation to nature and agricultural production, this is especially true for students. At the same time, new economic relations, changing the rural production infrastructure, give rise to unemployment, a non-farm, soulless attitude to the land, which affects the results of the school, including the formation of ecological culture. Therefore, they became interested in what they could improve and how they could help in a situation where the environmental situation is so terrible around the world.
The problem that has arisen — maintaining ecological balance — requires great efforts from society. The manifestation of such efforts should begin with a qualitatively new relationship between nature and society. And it’s better if it starts from the school bench at an early age so that the personality that will be formed in the educational organization already in the learning process understands the whole essence of this problem and takes a direct part in influencing and improving the situation that has developed over the given period of time in relation to ecological situation in the world, and directly its native land.
Environmental upbringing and education are a long process: it is necessary to change the stable «conquering” attitude of man to nature. After all, everything that man could and can create for himself and his needs, he borrows from nature. Therefore, without consuming to one extent or another natural substance, a person simply cannot exist as a biological species.
In my opinion, the success of environmental education and schoolchildren education depends on the use of various forms of work and their reasonable combination. But all the work only then will affect the feelings and development of students if they have their own experience in communicating with nature. Therefore, excursions, walks, trips should take a large place in the system of work to cultivate a love of nature, since the formation of ecological culture, in my opinion, must begin not only in traditional training sessions, but also in various extracurricular activities: when conducting environmental games, staging ecological fairy tales, conducting the «Ecological Path” and other events that will allow students to change the consumer's attitude to nature. In this regard, at the beginning of the 2019–2020 academic year, the school team with. Andreevka, a program was developed to manage the formation of the ecological culture of students.
We have established what place the school occupies in the educational space of the Chernyansky district, it has been clarified what are the problems of its greening.
The purpose of our study is to study the level of ecological culture of students and conduct experimental work on the use of effective methods, methods and forms of educational work for the moral formation of the personality of schoolchildren in a rural educational institution.
In the work we use the following research methods: theoretical: analysis of the state of the problem, as well as psychological, pedagogical, methodological literature and the results of scientific research; experimental: pedagogical observation, forming an experiment; methods of qualitative and quantitative analysis of the research results [1, p.113].
Since September 2019, we have begun the practical part of the implementation of the formative experiment in the Andreevsky rural settlement. In the course of our pilot work, we once again became convinced that moral education of students by environmental means is a priority in the school’s work, taking into account the age of students, with the ultimate goal of creating an environmental culture. Knowing that the formation of environmental consciousness is the most important task of the school, we carry it out intelligibly and unobtrusively.
And lessons of an unconventional form help us in this: for example, lessons, holidays, excursions. In such lessons one can achieve what is impossible to achieve in a traditional lesson: active participation of students in preparing the lesson, interest in making the lesson go well. Non-traditional lessons, as a rule, are remembered for a long time by children, and of course, the material that was studied on them. Therefore, non-traditional forms of the lesson are especially important for the formation of environmental awareness among students.
During the organization and conduct of non-standard lessons (for example, classy and theatrical evenings), adolescents not only increased their level of environmental knowledge, but also significantly changed the motivation for acting in nature, as well as the interests of students. In addition, focused systematic work on spiritual and environmental education contributes to a significant increase in the ecological culture of schoolchildren.
But not only non-standard lessons lead to an increase in the level of ecological culture of students, but also conversations on classroom hours, excursions, walks, quizzes, contests, and theatrical rulers. In addition, children publish their school newspaper School Family, which reflects not only environmental issues, but the whole school life. The guys also participate in community workdays, greening the school grounds and the school itself, watching and caring for plants.
During contests and quizzes, the students actively express themselves, therefore deepen their knowledge and skills. All this knowledge acquired during the entire educational process will undoubtedly leave an imprint on the consciousness of children and their future activities. Pupils develop moral qualities, a vision of the correct life position and the desire to adhere to it. And because of an already laid foundation, it will be easier for us, teachers working in high school, to continue the formation of a spiritual and moral position among schoolchildren and instill in them spiritual qualities. Indeed, if he does not understand this, education will not be effective [2, p. 59].
Therefore, the teachers of the school are faced with such tasks as how to affirm in students the desire for truth, goodness, beauty; to form an internal need for self-improvement, a humanistic attitude to the world around us, and engaging in the work of reviving, preserving and enhancing cultural and spiritual moral values. Conducting conversations with some students, it became clear to us that the implementation of these tasks yields positive results. The participants know what duty, honor, compassion, conscience, responsibility, discipline are [3, p.137].
The formative experiment is still ongoing and soon many events are planned, one of which is communication via the Internet with other educational organizations, both domestically and with foreign schools. Together with our students, we plan to carry out the study and exchange of experience on the issue of improving the ecological culture of students, which will be especially useful for both teachers and students at the basic school.
References:
- Bukin. A. P. In friendship with people and nature: Prince. for the teacher. — M.: Education, 1991, 159 p.
- Holod V. L. The single educational space of the rural area as a factor in the formation of younger generations: Textbook. — Belgorod: BelSU Publishing House, 2004, 128 p.
- Deryabo SD, Yasvin VP. Environmental pedagogy and psychology. — Rostov-on-Don.: Phoenix, 2006, 480 p.
